Coming Clean
by Yemam2422
Summary: Alternate ending for 2X12. Beth and Rio own up to hurting each other.


Rio was good at compartmentalizing. It was a job requirement. So was bending the truth, breaking it sometimes. He considered it a necessary evil, part of life.

Like when Marcus asked him if Santa was real, he said yes. Let the kid believe in the fantasy for a little while longer. There were so few joys like that in life. And like telling Beth she was just work. _Pretty much_, he said calmly even though his heart skipped a beat. Even though he couldn't look her in the eyes.

It was a lie. The lie itself did not bother him. It was the reason he was lying that stuck in his gut. It wasn't a business decision, part of the job. Not because she took his pills or half his money. It was because he was hurt. It cut him to his core that he had let her into his world, made him believe this thing between them was something real, and then rejected him. Told him she was done so easily and casually as if he didn't know the salt of her skin. As if she didn't dig her nails into his back, held him hard as he fucked her though an orgasm. As if her body hadn't stretched across his, languid with pleasure he'd given her.

He was usually two steps ahead of everyone, enemies and friends alike. He spent his days surrounded by people trying to skim money off the top, or side hustle on his dime and time, get something over on him somehow and someway. He knew what he was doing when it came to people playing him. He knew how to play them back.

But Beth was always throwing curveballs, clouding his reasoning, crushing the logical parts of his brain. Like that day in her bedroom. Her first kiss, as slow and tentative as it was, made him forget his name, where he was. Attraction and affection and possession settled like dust on his heart. It was then he should have known he was in too deep, falling without a chance to catch himself slipping, forgetting how this all started – with her stealing his money, a rotten egg.

She wasn't just work. She wasn't just someone he was sleeping with. She wasn't a girlfriend. She was all of it and none of it at once. He should be immune to someone like Beth. He didn't have room for someone like her in his life, but there she was at the center of it, under his skin, spreading like an infection.

His instincts screamed at him that Beth was trouble. Beautiful, smart, enticing trouble. He desperately wanted to be wrong. But he needed to protect himself, untangle himself from her. At first he was content to nurse his wounds in seclusion. If she wanted to be done, then he wanted her done. But his antagonism festered, his ego couldn't resist the spitefulness. So he ignored her calls and texts. And ultimately used his most effective weapon. The power of precisely cruel words. He told her she was just work. _Yeah, pretty much_, he'd said, punctuated with the equally harsh _that's it_. The syllables ricocheted off the history between them, off Beth's own hurtful words – _I'm done_.

Rio waited until Beth disappeared back into her house before driving away, his shoulders tight. He suspected something was up with the Feds. But that wasn't what echoed in the car, what had his head swimming. No, it was the look on Beth's face, the quiet catch of her breath that she swallowed, the down turn of her mouth, the soft hurt in her eyes caught him off guard, tripped a switch in him, distracted him.

The streets of Detroit blurred by as he drove aimlessly. Rio was tired. It had been a long day. Looking for clarity he stopped at his favorite bar. _The_ bar. With the bathroom he'll never forget. He savored his drink, sipped it slowly, tracing the warmth it spread through his body. He stayed sober though, especially by the thoughts that weighted him, namely how Beth shredded his heart.

How despite it all, he still wanted to be with her, around her, near her, help her. How, as he looked back on the past few months, he could see this was where they were always headed. He had just been too stubborn to notice. Moments flashed before him, from the day he broke into her house to get his money back, to their meet ups to her asking for more work. Most of all he lingered on the way she looked at him that afternoon in her bedroom. Like she wanted him as desperately as he wanted her.

That he could keep Beth in one lane, that she would stay there, was foolish thinking. Beth had erased his usually concrete boundaries the moment she told him he was an idiot, the moment he shook his head signaling to let her and her friends live. He felt a tug in that moment, a pull that only intensified. Growing stronger with every encounter.

He finished his drink, the warm softness of his bed calling his name. But that's not where he headed. Instead, Rio did what he did best with new information, new awareness. He turned it into action.

He found Beth sitting on her living room couch in total darkness, bourbon in hand.

"What's wrong with the lights?" he asked.

Beth should have been startled, but she's no longer surprised by Rio's drop-ins. She even developed the habit of keeping the back door unlocked, a subconscious invitation.

"Nothing. It's more peaceful this way."

After getting the kids to bed and throwing away Dean's spaghetti covered shirt she sat on the couch, almost in a trance. The answer to Dean's question should have been simple. _What do you want?_ She wanted nothing more than to keep her kids. That was the most important thing in the world to her. And now she and Dean were coming up with a plan for that to happen – an apartment, alternate weekends. But it wasn't enough to stop the shadowy ache that she wanted something more. Something that she only found in the dangerous, tempting man standing behind her now. Event though what he'd said to her still rang in her ears, left her swimming in humiliation and temper.

She barely turned to acknowledge Rio. "What do you want?"

Words mattered, Rio knew this. So he tried to find the right ones. To say the complete truth that Beth had come to mean everything to him was risky. Too risky for just money or a few fucks. But it was worth it for something bigger. Besides, he thrived on risk. He exhaled deeply, rubbed a hand across his jaw.

"I'm here now with you, right?"

Beth rose and circled the couch to face Rio.

"It's practically the middle of the night and my kids are asleep. Please leave."

"I came here to tell you something."

"You said everything you needed to in the car."

"Remember what I told you about setting limits?"

"What? Yes. What does that have to do with anything?" Beth was frustrated at Rio's pivot, in no mood for one of his lessons, exhausted from the push and pull of trying to sort truth from lies with him.

"See, I haven't been following my own advice." He took a step closer.

"What are you talking about?"

"I never mix business with pleasure. I never make things personal. Those are my limits, my boundaries. But I can't get you out of my fucking head."

Beth blinked at Rio's words. She had expected some sort of absurd punishment, some new job forced on her. Before she could orient herself, Rio walked up to her, so close she could breathe him in. She felt her shiver spread to him. Beth braced but didn't evade when he delicately pushed her hair out of her face.

"You're more than just work to me, Elizabeth." His tone was serious, purposeful. Not the casual, callous tenor from before. His move was made, the moment poised to unspool into something more, pulsing with possibility.

Beth was stunned into silence, whiplashed by Rio's admission. In only a couple of hours he'd gone from dismissing her to…this. Nerves chased excitement as his words absorbed into her skin, her heart.

Beth was used to charades, acting the roles expected of her. Happy wife, fulfilled mother. And she had put on a performance of a lifetime when she told Rio she was done. But she realized there were some things in life you couldn't play act through.

She could no longer ignore the small way her breath caught whenever she saw him, the way her heart lurched toward him. Not because of his looks or that confident walk or sly grin, but because he allowed her feelings, her ideas. But she had played the victim and thrown it all back in his face with two simple words, _I'm done_.

Their history, short as it was, was filled with damage and pain. But it's so clear now. He lied to her, she lied to him. She hurt him, he hurt her. They were equals in their own twisted way. Maybe in the perfect way.

"I'm sorry," Beth finally said, shaking off the introspection.

"For what?"

"For ending things the way I did," she said. It wasn't hard to say, she wanted to say more, but more words stalled. He'd have to accept her small steps next to his powerful strides.

"Apology accepted," Rio said. He leaned in, just a little. "Didn't expect me to be reasonable, did you?"

"No."

"You're a pain the ass, you know that?" he smiled as he said it, removing any insult.

"You drive me crazy," she countered, the tiniest sliver of smile at her lips.

"Sounds like we're even." His head tilted to the side, his grin faded slowly as his gaze roamed her face.

He lowered his mouth to hers, stopping an inch before contact. He saw her eyes darken, lower. He waited until he heard the intake of breath before he kissed her, soft and gentle, as if testing, teasing her with his tenderness. He pulled away before Beth could sink into it.

"Go to sleep, Elizabeth. We have some Feds to deal with tomorrow."

With the same quiet stealth that Rio came in to her home, her life, her heart, he disappeared back into the shadows.


End file.
